A Jaded Overclocker trapped in a Paladin's Body

WoW’s Competition

So I started thinking, how many of us that have been playing this game for longer than a year or so have other games that we still frequent? I can easily see how people who’ve been enveloped in Azeroth since vanilla could be experiencing much more burn out, but what about the rest of us? Personally I’ve been playing WoW for just shy of three years and still have quite a bit of lasting interest. Saying this though I still have to make note of the fact that lately I’ve been seeing more things pull my time away from WoW. For whatever reason I seem to have become much more likely to put down WoW to play other PC games or take time off in general.

I’m sure that a lot of this up and down interest in the game lately has to do with the pre-Cataclysm slump we find ourselves in. I still enjoy raiding and love my guild but each week it seems to take a little more direct intention to get me to sit down for a few hours. I suppose you could say that this happens during regular content release as well but I think it’s when we’re facing such a heavy gear reset and flood of new content that it’s easy to sit back and wait. It’s interesting though because while I understand why things are changing, I don’t necessarily like it, I want as much as ever to be able to sit down with purpose and jump back into Azeroth for a few hours.

So what is it that’s contending for my time you might say. Honestly, aside from DIRT 2 and Torchlight there isn’t much else that I really play. I’m sure this differs among many people but I find myself drifting off to other (non-PC related) activities more than I end up playing other games. A part of me is worried to see what’s going to happen to my spare time when we have Starcraft 2 and Diablo III on top of Cataclysm to delve into. I hope to hell that Blizzard gets Cataclysm right, the more time I spend out of game in the blogging/podcasting community the easier it seems to get for me to find something else to do…and then there goes another 2 frost emblems for the week.

To wrap this up I’d just like to re-iterate that there’s nothing wrong with balancing WoW with the out of game community, other games or even the outdoors…I just find it interesting how the tug-of-war shifts back and forth as months go by. While I try not to put much weight or value on pre-release information about Cataclysm, it’s at least interesting enough that I find myself starting to prepare for the release in ways I hadn’t considered. What I’m more greatful than anything is to be part of a structured raiding guild that keeps me coming back day after day. If it wasn’t for my weekly raid schedule I can say without a doubt that I might not log in at all for days at a time.

Here’s to hoping that Blizz knocks it out of the park with Cataclysm and we’re all able to engross ourselves in the game for months to come……sigh.